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Prime Minister Narendra Modi is gearing to take India on its biggest road trip. Hoping to boost investment and create jobs, Modi is banking on the roads to kickstart the economy.

Tuesday’s announcement of the biggest highway construction plan so far in the country aims at putting the lagging economy back on high-growth path.

The government said it would develop approximately 83,677 km of roads at an investment of Rs 6.92 lakh crore by 2022. The ambitious project is expected to push economic activity and generate at least 14.2 crore man-days across the country over the next five years.

Roads are central to Modi’s vision of development because they create a big multiplier effect. Borrowing from his predecessor and former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Modi hopes to transform India through roads.

In 1999, Vajpayee laid the foundation for the Golden Quadrilateral Highway project, which would link four major cities: Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata. It was India’s longest road project. “The highways we are building under the National Highways Development Project are not mere highways. They are the bhagyarekha (lines of destiny) on the hands of our nation. With these highways, we are writing a new destiny of India,” Vajpayee had said at that time with his quintessential rhetorical flourish. Indeed, the Golden Quadrilateral project came to be the hinge of India's rapid development later.

Modi may have realised the wisdom of Vajpayee that investment in transport infrastructure is a surefire way to boost economy.

The latest roads investment programme includes the Bharatmala scheme, under which 34,800 km of highways would be constructed at the cost of Rs 5.35 lakh crore Under Bharatmala, the road transport and highways ministry will construct 9,000 km of economic corridors across the country. The project also entails constructing 6,000 km long inter corridor and feeder routes, 2,000 km of border and international connectivity roads, 5,000 km to be upgraded under the national corridor efficiency programme, 800 km of greenfield expressways, 10,000 km under the national highway development programme and 2,000 km of coastal and port connectivity roads.

At a time when Modi is under pressure due to vanishing jobs, sluggish growth and negative impact of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) on small businesses, this ambitious project could be his road to glory.